Since the GDPR became effective law, it is not too easy to let users participate in the content of a website, like offering them a means to comment on the original content or other comments.

For my website I have chosen to fall back to good old email. Pages that I expect to eventually provocate comments, will display a colored field with a button to send a comment … via email.

Unlike other websites, this does not open a contact form. It opens your email-client! From a GDPR point-of-view this means: all this happens on your computer, not on my server. Everything you do on your computer is solely your responsibility! The process does not use and half-hidden means like cookies. There will be your email-client’s window with an email-template and all that you see is all there is.

Privacy

If you send me an email, you got the same privacy as if you send an email to anybody else: the whole content of the email including the way it took etc. pp. will arrive on the other side, in this case: my email-account. If you configured your email-account with your real name, I will have it. Rest assured, I will not knowingly/intentionally publish such information under any circumstances! But anything you write, once you send it to me, becomes mine. You have given up privacy on this. Somewhere, we need to draw the line of privacy: if you send a paper-mail, you also have no right to ask it back, get it destroyed, or define/limit they things that are done with the information in it. I expect email to have the same level of privacy and use.

I will not share your emails with any 3rd party or service or people. I reserve the right to publish the content of the email, without the email-address or your realname. I would prefer, if you do not include an email-signature, if you do, I inted to cut it in order to protect your privacy. This is a manual task and subject to human error. If I accidentially mess it and publish more than I should have: Just send another comment, telling me about it and I will fix it as soon as possible!

If you got problems with this … simply do not do it … or use an anonymous email account.

Regarding the storage of your message: I got vital interests to store your email to prove the origin of the comment/contribution, if I publish it. If I do not publish it, it will be deleted with a certain lag time of up to some weeks.

I will never publish your email-address. If you do not specify a nickname, your email will be referred to as “anonymous”.

I reserve the right to publish … or not!

I do not guarantee to publish a comment. If it is violating the netiquette or looks in any way problematic to me, I will delete it. If I find the language problematic, but the matter interesting, I might answer by email and try to find a solution with you, again … no promises made.

Formatting the comment mail

In the mail, the first line will contain a reference to the page and a key. If you change the first line, the mail will likely be silently deleted (automatically, this is an antispam-measure). For those interested: my email address will be picked up by large amounts of spambots. They will not pickup the first line in the body. If there is not the expected key and a known page-reference, the mail is supposed to be SPAM: Deleted!

Please note: there is no SPAM-folder on this comment-email-account: what is not identified as a potentially valid comment, by its first line, will simply be deleted. No exceptions made, no complaints accepted.

If you specify a nickname, this nickname will be published. The Nickname must start immediately after the colon (spaces are ok) keep it short.

The first line of your comment will be used as a punchline/subject of your comment.

Nicknames

I have no means to verify nicknames, like “are the already in use by someone?” other than manually searching my mail-account. So kindly: keep your nick very individual, ideally add a random number!

I intend at a later point in time to create a script to scan for nickname fraud, a.k.a. trolls. Those might end on a blacklist that will mark their email-address as SPAM. I do not expect this to happen any time soon. If I get more comments than I can manually handle, I will switch to a professional service.

How do I process your comments

• I will read them, for sure
• if I decide to publish them, I will Copy&Paste the email’s body including a especially the first line, but excluding - hopefully - any signature lines
• I will paste this text into a script that automatically publishes the comment in the right page using your nickname (or “anonymous”)
• I will keep your email in my mail-folder, in order to prove the origin of the text just in case, I get legally forced to do so (a.k.a. “vital interest of storing personal information”)

How communicate with me in private?

If you want to send me a comment or question that is not to be published, please do not use those comment buttons!

Send me a personal email. In order to do so, kindly use the email address from the legal notice.

Requests to delete comments

If you find a comment that in any way violates law, regulation, your feeling or any common code of conduct, please send my a personal email. I will review your request and answer and react as soon as possible. Just to make it clear: this is a “hobby”-like site. I have a main-job. Such requests may take days or weeks to be processed. On the other side: facebook would likely be slower ;-).

If you want your own comment(s) to be delete, kindly use the same way. Please note: if any other user cited you … I will not delete the citation.

My own decision to delete comments

If a page is being flooded with comments, I might archive or delete some, depending on date, relevance and my own interest.

If you understand this as censorship, have it your way. I need to keep this site usable (a.k.a. vital interest).